Cargolux sees mixed-fleet as interim solution - CEO

Air France, KLM cargo cartel fine annulled

The Swiss Federal Administrative Court has annulled a EUR3.9 million euro (USD4.26 million dollar) fine imposed on Air France, Air France-KLM, and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in relation to a decades-old alleged cargo cartel that has ensnared multiple airlines and their subsidiaries.

A January 18 statement issued by Air France's legal team, Linklaters, said the court annulled the Swiss Competition Commission-issued fine in a December 20 judgement. "The Federal Administrative Court accepted Air France's arguments, particularly regarding the lack of jurisdiction for certain practices," the statement read.

Notably, the matter concerned only the three entities, with Martinair, British Airways, Air Canada, JAL - Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, LATAM Airlines, and Cargolux not being party to the proceedings. The case stemmed from alleged cargo cartel activity between 1999 and 2006 among the carriers. In 2010, the European Commission began issuing a series of fines to the airlines for the alleged fixing of air cargo charges, many of which have been successfully overturned...

Netherlands' Martinair adds wet-leased B747 freighter

Martinair (MP, Amsterdam Schiphol) has wet-leased a B747-400FSCD from Cargolux (CV, Luxembourg) to cover for its own aircraft of the same type that was ferried to Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta for heavy maintenance, according to Luchtvaartnieuws.nl.

LX-TCV (msn 30401) operated for Cargolux until December 31, 2022. It was then ferried from Luxembourg to Amsterdam Schiphol on December 2 and operated its first revenue flight for the Dutch cargo specialist, a subsidiary of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, the next day to Miami International. It will be used on routes to Miami and Bogotá.

The wet-leased quadjet replaces B747-400ERF PH-CKB (msn 33695), which was taken offline after a flight from Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta on December 23 and subsequently ferried to Jakarta for heavy maintenance on December 25. Martinair General Manager Paul van der Wardt told ch-aviation the wet lease would continue through the end of January 2023.

Cargolux is a much larger airline than Martinair with a fleet of six B747-400ERFs, eight B747-400FSCDs, and fourteen B747-8Fs....

Calls for more airlines to be based at Zhengzhou, China

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